There is no reason whatsoever why we should not be reproducing these successes in eThekwini. We are simply not interested in taking this issue seriously enough to muster the political will required to take the measures which have been shown to work in other parts of the country.

This proposal is quite simple. Given the extent of cable theft in our Metro, it is many orders more cost-effective to leave lights in certain high-theft areas on 24 hours to lower the risk of theft, than it is to replace that length of cable.

We can no longer sit back and do nothing about this economic growth sapping crime. I urge you to support this and any other initiatives which seek to reduce cable theft.

Comrades, total shutdown of schools continues tomorrow (Monday - 16 Aug 2010). The ff. program must be implemented:
1) Intensify the closing down of former model c and private school.
2) All Regions have rejected the offer of 7% and R700 housing subsidy.
3) The program that will be followed going forward will be tabled and engaged at the Branch Chairs and Secretaries Forum that will be held at Regional Office at 14:00 tomorrow (16 Aug).
4) All SADTU members are expected to partake in the total shutdown program. We will meet @ Ptn Library @ 7H30.
Branch Secretary

I have notified the Pinetown SAPS and Metro Police and requested they protect the schools from being closed down. Please let as many people as you can know, especially those in the targeted schools.

Cllr Warwick Chapman
083 7797 094

“Death Road”
Cllrs Macpherson and De Boer proposed a motion which would have seen urgent measures taken place to improve the safety of “Death Road” on the M4 Ruth First highway between Broadway and Virginia in Durban North. The proposal suggested barriers be installed to separate the lanes and Metro Police establish a permanent unit to monitor that road. The ANC dismissed the motion with contempt suggesting the proposers were not following protocol despite the numerous efforts by councillors with City officials to see action taken.

The Deputy Mayor went as far as suggesting the DA Cllrs were trying to further protect their “leafy suburbs” while other parts of the City were in a significantly worse condition. DA Cllr Heinz De Boer clarified that “if the Mayor chooses to admit other parts of the City are in a poor state, that is his prerogative and shows up the lack of action by the City and councillors in those area, but as the Councillors responsible for Durban North and Umhlanga, we are doing our jobs as demanded by our communities.”

“Street Lights”
Also dispatched with a stunning display of arrogance and personal attacks was the motion proposed by Cllrs Chapman and Lindsay seeking that a task team be setup comprising councillors and officials from the Metro Electricity Department to urgently address the high number of faulty street lights in the City. Lindsay contended that despite 6 months of trying to get the Electricity department to fix over 200 faulty lights in the Pinetown New Germany area, little or no action had been taken.

Chapman explained that with the FIFA World Cup coming up and noting the serious impact that poor lighting has on crime, the DA wished to see councillors working together with Electricity Department officials to resolve urgent lighting and safety issues ahead of the big event. Again the ANC, through Cllr Reddy, used protocol as their excuse to sideline this constructive proposal.

Chapman, referring to the treatment of both proposals, said that “the ANC chose cheap politics over urgently needed service delivery in what is indicative of the attitude which has seen the gradual decline in support for the ruling party and spawned service delivery protests all over the country.”

– Warwick Chapman (Cllr Ward 18) | 083 7797 094 | ward18@ethekwini.org | http://warwickchapman.com

The letter goes on to state that Mr Mabanga “is not totally informed of the status of the electric fence” and that the fence depicted in the picture in the Daily News 24 February “is still under construction” and “not operational”.

As the councillor who represents the community bordering the prison, I find it totally unacceptable that the head of the Correctional Centre appears to have lied about the stance of the HRC on this matter and additionally that he was not sufficiently informed about the status of the electric fence. I sincerely hope his replacement does a better job.

A copy of the letter is available here.

eThekwini is not getting enough of the basics right and these are but two of many such examples we experience on a daily basis in our City.

I would, however, like to applaud Durban Solid Waste for getting going with the cleanup at the beachfront promptly on the morning of the 2 January. It goes without saying that the amount of litter generated by the hundreds of thousands of New Year’s day beachgoers is massive and DSW have their work cut out cleaning it all up. They however, seem to have the basics right – they arrived, and they got started.

– DA Councillor, Warwick Chapman

I believe it is quite clear that one of our jobs as a political party is to show our opponents up when their actions and practice differ from their words and policies. This is an important component of the greater task of presenting our party as a capable alternative to that opponent. So, for example, when the ANC attempts to show the DA up by accusing us of being racist and then failing to back it up with facts, the DA, through the Crooked Comrades Monitor is not only accusing the ANC of accommodating criminality within its ranks but backing it up with facts.

In the same article, ANC spokesperson, Brian Sokutu said that the deployment of ANC comrades into public and private sector positions was not the business of the DA. Unfortunately on this point Mr Sokutu is wrong. The word public in reference to public sector jobs means appointments are everyone’s business since it is our money being spent, and unfortunately for the ANC, the DA is included in that “everyone”. The Crooked Comrades Monitor deals only with appointments in the public sector since President Zuma came to power on the back of promises to fight crime and corruption.

Were the ANC to attempt to build a similar list for the DA they would find that the Democratic Alliance has at the first hint of any suspicion of illegal activity, suspended membership of the person or terminated the relationship with the organisation involved pending full investigation.

The fact of the matter is that the ANC tolerates corruption and criminalism within its own ranks. How can a government stand up on a soap box and berate corruption as an evil of society, an enemy of the national democratic revolution and then at the same time allow this extent of complicity with corruption and criminalism to continue?

What South Africa needs is a clean, efficient and correctly resourced public service and representatives, and in order to feed the current climate of demand for service delivery, that should the single highest priority for the ruling party.

Dear Julius

In the ANC Youth League press release entitled, “ANC YL FULLY BEHIND SA’S GOLDEN GIRL—MOKGADI CASTER SEMENYA” (11 September), your organisation stated: “The ANC YL is [..] very concerned by the fact that all the media reports about Caster Semenya are generated in Australia, which is the most lucrative destination for South Africa’s racists and fascists, who refused to live under a black democratic government.”

Julius, the true enemies of South African unity are not the racists outside of South Africa but rather those who spread racial prejudice within the borders of our country.  Of course there is the stereotypical white racist, but then there are also people like yourself Julius.  The enemies of South African unity are people who spread words and ideas which are divisive.  In a relatively short period of time you have become a master at sowing seeds of racial conflict and disunity.

Everytime you or one of your Youth League colleagues cry wolf on the issue of race, waving that big red race card, you belittle and undermine the veracity of the fight against racism.  Racism does not exist one way only.  One of the biggest challenges in the fight against racism is to recognise that discrimination on the basis of colour is something that works both ways.

When you stand on your soapbox and tell the country that whites fled the “the black democratic government”, you are doing nothing more than fostering the entrenchment of racism.   We have a hard won democratic government which is supposed to be for all of South Africa’s people.

So Julius, if you truly are interested in uniting this country you need to start thinking before you speak.  Shooting from the lip as irresponsibly as you do does nothing to build confidence in the minds of those South Africans whose skills are being lured away from our country. It does nothing to build confidence in those potential foreign investors who can provide job soaking growth and investment in our economy.

Your vocal commitment to those poor South Africans you purport to represent is not backed up by your regular ill-considered public utterances.  I urge you to think before you speak. Use your platform to spread messages which promote unity and add constructively to the fight against racism.

Warwick Chapman, DA Councillor, eThekwini – ward18@ethekwini.org

ANC Cllr Mthunzi Dlamini during yesterday’s sitting of the full eThekwini Council, berated er… someone, for a person’s title  of “Mr” (or “Umnumzane” as he explained in isiZulu during his tirade) being omitted in an agenda item.  He justified this by suggesting that it was omitted by whoever wrote it because the person in question, Mr Lucky Montana, the CEO of PRASA, was black and so not respected.  He said it was racist.

I noted that later on in the agenda, an item referred to a lease being renewed for a “Sotirios Spetsiotis”, who was also the unfortunate victim of the abovementioned disrespectful omission of title.  Cllr Dlamini did not, however, bring this dreaful injustice to our attention, so I felt it necessary to do so in this forum.

Thus, on behalf of the eThekwini Council, I would like to apologise to both Mr Montana and Mr Spetsiotis for this grand miscarriage of justice.

I would like all South Africans regardless of race to please be aware you should never again misspell someone’s name or omit their title for fear of having to claim asylum status in Canada.

Even if it was not so grossly out of taste, I’m not sure the literal meaning of “Scraping the barrel” can even be applied to this article in any way whatsoever!

UPDATE: The wording has been corrected:

Hi
Many thanks, I have changed this.
Best regards
Angela

______________________________________________
Angela Spencer, Acting E-Communications Manager
eThekwini Communications Department